FINAL – Kings 2, Sharks 1 – Thomas, Dubois, Hiller

The LA Kings skated to a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday evening at SAP Center, as they completed the sweep of their final set of back-to-back games this season.

Midway through the first period, the Kings opened the scoring, courtesy of a nice individual effort from forward Adrian Kempe. The Swede forced a turnover at his own defensive blueline, outraced a San Jose defensemen down the ice and buried a low shot, blocker side, past San Jose goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood and in for his 25th goal of the season and a 1-0 advantage.

Less than 30 seconds later, the Kings doubled their advantage through forward Akil Thomas, who scored his first career NHL goal to put the Kings up by two. Defenseman Jordan Spence drove the puck into the slot and dropped it back to Thomas, who beat Blackwood clean with his shot from between the circles for a 2-0 advantage. Spence and forward Pierre-Luc Dubois tallied the assists on the play Dubois’ fourth over his last two games.

Inside two minutes to play in regulation, with the Sharks net empty for the extra attacker, forward Klim Kostin scored to bring the hosts to within one goal. After San Jose gained the offensive zone on a dump, forward Mikael Granlund fed the puck into the slot, where Kostin one-timed it past Kings netminder David Rittich to end his shutout bid, moving the score where it would eventually finish at 2-1.

Hear from Thomas, Dubois and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s game.

Akil Thomas

Akil Thomas talks about the win and scoring his first NHL goal🎤@LAKings I #LAKingsLive pic.twitter.com/koLVQ1rlO3

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 5, 2024

Pierre-Luc Dubois
On finding a way to win tonight, on the second half of a back-to-back
It’s never easy, especially coming back from a big roadtrip, a quick night at home and then getting back on the road again. This time of year, it’s not easy, but to get a good start was really important. We did that and that was the difference maker tonight.

On finding a way to win tonight, on the second half of a back-to-back
It’s really cool to be a part of it. To see Laf at the beginning of the year get his first goal and tonight to see Akil get his, it’s hard work. It’s been challenging for him at times, he’s been through surgeries, he’s been through obstacles, and to finally see him get a shot and score that goal tonight, he was the happiest guy out there, but the whole bench, the whole team was thrilled for him. It was great to see.

On if he paid any attention to the Blues losing tonight in Nashville during the game
I didn’t even know that until now. I think at this time of the year, especially when we’re in that spot right now, it’s ours to lose and you don’t want to be looking behind, you want to be looking ahead. It’s not a switch you turn on for the playoffs, it’s this race, it’s this mindset that goes until the end of the year. Then, once the playoffs start, you’re where you want to be.

On the Kings being more in control of the puck tonight than on their Canadian trip
It’s a different game than we’ve played recently, especially on that roadtrip. It’s a different team out there, we had to adjust a little bit, but I thought we did a good job.

On his thoughts of the team’s defensive performance tonight
We didn’t give them much. We clogged the middle of the ice pretty well and when we made mistakes, Ritter was huge for us. We’d have liked them to not get that last one there, but it’s hockey, they were trying to score, stuff happens. Yeah, we played really well defensively and I thought Ritter played really well.

Jim Hiller
On the play of Akil Thomas and him scoring his first career NHL goal
It was awesome. He’s been through a lot, we’ve talked about Arvy and what he’s been through and Akil’s had the same path. To see him score his first NHL goal, and somebody else mentioned this too, we talked about the guys who don’t score as much, so there’s an example of a guy that hasn’t scored much because he hasn’t played much, but you saw him out there, he’s putting the puck in, he’s forechecking and he’s doing all the dirty work. The guys were pretty excited for him.

On showing confidence in Thomas with more minutes and more situations tonight
I think so, we talked before, we wanted to play him more and we eventually put him at center and got him out on the penalty kill, so he earned all that as he went along. We were really impressed with his game for sure and not just me, all the coaches. It was kind of a talk in between periods, let’s get him out there some more, he’s done a good job. Yawns wanted him on the penalty kill, too.

On his perspective of the team’s puck management in tonight’s win
Early on, yeah, I would say that, I agree with it early on. Later, not so much. We defended pretty well, but what it ended up doing was causing some penalties, when we turned the puck over in the second half of the game. That’s not what we wanted to do, and it didn’t allow us to play a lot in the o-zone. But, we’ll take the win, they played hard. We didn’t give them much, we didn’t like our power play, but we’ll move forward from here.

On if, at this point in the season, anything matter besides the two points
You always want the Picasso, every time you play, you’re always looking for perfection. We didn’t have that tonight, but in the end, all anybody cares about tomorrow is did you get the two points or didn’t you? So, we’ll take the two points. We’ll leave this one behind, we’ll have a rest tomorrow and then we’ll work on the next two points.

On if he’s scoreboard watching games like St. Louis/Nashville
We were watching some of the games, we had them on before the game, we were watching for three or four different games. You know, it’s an exciting time, it’s great hockey. We watched the Islanders/Columbus, there’s good games out there. The Pittsburgh/Washington game was a good game, so we watched them all. We love hockey.

Notes –
– Akil Thomas (1-0=1) scored his first career NHL goal in his second career game. In doing so, he became the sixth different Kings skater to score their first career NHL goal this season: Alex Laferriere (Oct. 21, 2023 vs. BOS), Andreas Englund (Oct. 31, 2023 at TOR), Alex Turcotte (Jan. 31, 2024 at NSH), Brandt Clarke (Feb. 17, 2024 at BOS) and Jacob Moverare (Mar. 7, 2024 vs. OTT). Thomas is also the second Kings player in this season to have his first career goal stand as the game winner, following Brandt Clarke (Feb. 17 at BOS).
– Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) scored his 25th goal of the campaign, extending his point streak to four games (3-2=5). With his tally, Kempe has eclipsed the 25-goal mark for the third consecutive season.
– Pierre-Luc Dubois notched his 24th assist of the season and 197th of his career on Thomas’ first period goal. It marked the third time this season Dubois has factored on a player’s first career NHL goal behind Alex Laferriere (A1 on Oct. 23, 2023 vs. BOS) and Andreas Englund (A1 on Oct. 31, 2023 at TOR).
– Per NHL PR, Dubois has matched the franchise mark for the most first career goals factored on in a single season. The other four players to factor on at least three first career goals in a single season include: Ziggy Palffy (x3 in 2000-01), Vladimir Tsyplakov (3x in 1998-99), Keith Crowder (3x in 1989-90) and Jim Fox (3x in 1980-81).
– Jordan Spence (0-1=1) picked up a helper to hit the 20-assist plateau for the first time in his career.
Drew Doughty skated in his 1,171st career NHL game, tying Sylvain Cote for the 42nd-most games played by a defenseman in league history.
– David Rittich turned aside 15-of-16 shots to earn his 12th win on the season and improving his record to 12-6-3.
With tonight’s victory, the Kings hit the 40-win mark for the third consecutive season and 16th in franchise history.
The Kings extend their point streak against San Jose to eight games (7-0-1). It is the fifth different active point streak of at least eight games against any one opponent, behind Arizona (11GP, 9-0-2), Anaheim (9 GP, 8-0-1), Chicago (9 GP, 7-0-2) and Ottawa (8 GP, 6-0-2).

The Kings are not scheduled to skate tomorrow, following the back-to-back games. The team will return to the ice on Saturday morning, in advance of hosting the Vancouver Canucks later on that evening ta Crypto.com Arena.

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